Names | NeMO, Mars 2022 orbiter [1] |
---|---|
Mission type | Telecommunications and reconnaissance |
Operator | NASA |
Mission duration | Planned: 6.5 years [1] |
Spacecraft properties | |
Launch mass | 1,900 kg (4,200 lb) [1] |
Dry mass | 1,300 kg (2,900 lb) [1] |
Payload mass | Instruments: 50 kg (110 lb) [1] |
Power | 20 kW solar arrays [1] |
Start of mission | |
Launch date | late 2020s |
Rocket | Falcon 9 or Atlas V-411 [1] |
Mars orbiter | |
Orbital parameters | |
Periareion altitude | 320 km (200 mi) [1] |
Inclination | 75°–93° (polar orbit) |
The Next Mars Orbiter (NeMO, earlier known as the Mars 2022 orbiter) is a proposed NASA Mars communications satellite with high-resolution imaging payload and two solar-electric ion thrusters. [2] [3]
The orbiter was initially proposed to be launched in September 2022 to link ground controllers with rovers and landers and extend mapping capabilities expected to be lost when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 2001 Mars Odyssey stop functioning, [2] [1] but officials elected to focus on flying the Perseverance rover first to cache various samples for a later NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return that will incorporate a Mars telecom orbiter, now envisioned for the late 2020s. [4]
Key features under study include solar electric ion drive engines, better solar arrays, and broadband laser communications (optic communication) between Earth and Mars. [2] [3] [5]
The orbiter is conceptually similar to the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, canceled in 2005, [3] and could be a technology precursor for a future round-trip sample return mission [6] and human expeditions to Mars. [2] [7] Robert Lock is leading the concept studies for the 2022 orbiter. [2] [7]
Concern in NASA is that the currently used relay satellites, 2001 Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, may stop functioning, resulting in the need to press the MAVEN science orbiter into use as a backup telecommunications relay. [2] [3] [8] Since the highly elliptical orbit of MAVEN limits its usefulness as a relay for surface operations, [9] [10] NASA will lower its orbit from 6,200 (3,900) to between 4,000 and 4,500 kilometers (2,500 and 2,800 mi) altitude, where it can serve as a relay while continuing its science mission. [11]
Another suggested feature under study is "the sample rendezvous capture and return capability". The samples cached by the Mars 2020 rover would be placed in Mars orbit by a future Mars ascent vehicle. From there, the orbiter would rendezvous, transfer the samples into a capsule and send it back to Earth. [12]
The proposed orbiter would be propelled with two solar-electric ion thrusters; one engine would be active while the other one would be a spare. [1] Electrical power to the engines would be provided by advanced solar arrays that generate 20 kW. [1]
An ion engine would give the spacecraft significant orbital flexibility for long-term support of future missions, [1] opportunistic flybys of Phobos and Deimos, [1] as well as the added capability of orbit support—rendezvous and capture—for a sample return mission. [1] An ion engine would also allow access to multiple latitudes and altitudes to optimize relay contacts.
The orbiter mission has been suggested by the Planetary Science Decadal Survey to be one of three missions of the proposed Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign. [12] [14] Samples would be collected and cached by the Mars 2020 mission and would be left on the surface of Mars for possible later retrieval. [14] The orbiter would be launched on a medium-class vehicle, reaching Mars in about nine months and set to aerobrake down to a 500 km (310 mi) circular orbit over six to nine months. [14]
The third mission of the proposed MSR campaign, the lander, would nominally be launched two years after the orbiter launch. The lander would deploy a "fetch rover" to retrieve the sample caches. A container holding the samples would be launched by a two-stage, solid-fueled Mars ascent vehicle (MAV) and placed in a 500 kilometres (310 mi) orbit comparable with the new orbiter and perform a rendezvous while in Mars orbit. [14] The container would be transferred to an Earth entry vehicle (EEV) which would bring it to Earth, enter the atmosphere under a parachute and hard-land for retrieval and analyses in specially designed safe laboratories. [12] [14]
This section needs to be updated.(August 2023) |
Some NASA officials consider the Mars 2022 orbiter an "essential orbital support for sample return", "significant" in maintaining the Martian communications infrastructure, and desirable for the continuity in remote sensing. [15] The President's FY2017 Budget provided $10 million to begin early conceptual work on the proposed Mars orbiter. [15] [16] In July 2016, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory awarded five $400,000 [1] sub-contracts to conduct concept studies. The five engineering companies are Boeing, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, Orbital ATK, and Space Systems/Loral. [17] [18]
However, in August 2017, Jim Green of NASA's Planetary Science Division stated that a 2022 launch for the orbiter was "probably off the table", as it would be too difficult to assemble an orbiter with all of the desired features in that time frame. [19] Jim Watzin of NASA's Mars Exploration Program stated in September 2017 that the orbiter may have to be cancelled, citing that "the likelihood of all of the relay orbiters failing is so low that no more investments are needed for that purpose." [20]
In February 2018, NASA announced that it was moving ahead with plans to alter the orbit of the MAVEN orbiter to have it serve as a communications relay. It will be lowered to 4,000–4,500 kilometers (2,500–2,800 mi) altitude, where it can serve as a relay while allowing it to continue its science mission. [21] In March 2018, NASA officials decided that the aging Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will be managed such that it will continue service for about ten more years, and the program will now focus its resources on flying a sample-return mission first. [4] The 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter will also be managed to continue operating until about 2025. [22] A new Mars relay orbiter is likely to take part in the sample-return architecture envisioned for the late 2020s. [4]
2001 Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment. It is hoped that the data Odyssey obtains will help answer the question of whether life existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Curiosity rover, and previously the Mars Exploration Rovers and Phoenix lander, to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of his and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The planet Mars has been explored remotely by spacecraft. Probes sent from Earth, beginning in the late 20th century, have yielded a large increase in knowledge about the Martian system, focused primarily on understanding its geology and habitability potential. Engineering interplanetary journeys is complicated and the exploration of Mars has experienced a high failure rate, especially the early attempts. Roughly sixty percent of all spacecraft destined for Mars failed before completing their missions and some failed before their observations could begin. Some missions have been met with unexpected success, such as the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which operated for years beyond their specification.
The Discovery Program is a series of Solar System exploration missions funded by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through its Planetary Missions Program Office. The cost of each mission is capped at a lower level than missions from NASA's New Frontiers or Flagship Programs. As a result, Discovery missions tend to be more focused on a specific scientific goal rather than serving a general purpose.
The Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO) was a cancelled Mars mission that was originally intended to launch in 2009 and would have established an Interplanetary Internet between Earth and Mars. The spacecraft would have arrived in a high orbit above Mars in 2010 and relayed data packets to Earth from a variety of Mars landers, rovers and orbiters for as long as ten years, at an extremely high data rate. Such a dedicated communications satellite was thought to be necessary due to the vast quantity of scientific information to be sent to Earth by landers such as the Mars Science Laboratory.
A Mars sample-return (MSR) mission is a proposed mission to collect rock and dust samples on Mars and return them to Earth. Such a mission would allow more extensive analysis than that allowed by onboard sensors.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to space exploration.
The idea of sending humans to Mars has been the subject of aerospace engineering and scientific studies since the late 1940s as part of the broader exploration of Mars. Some have also considered exploring the Martian moons of Phobos and Deimos. Long-term proposals have included sending settlers and terraforming the planet. Proposals for human missions to Mars have come from e.g. NASA, European Space Agency, Boeing, and SpaceX. As of 2023, only robotic landers and rovers have been on Mars. The farthest humans have been beyond Earth is the Moon, under the Apollo program.
MAVEN is a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars to study the loss of that planet's atmospheric gases to space, providing insight into the history of the planet's climate and water. The name is an acronym for "Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution" while the word maven also denotes "a person who has special knowledge or experience; an expert". MAVEN was launched on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on 18 November 2013 UTC and went into orbit around Mars on 22 September 2014 UTC. The mission is the first by NASA to study the Mars atmosphere. The probe is analyzing the planet's upper atmosphere and ionosphere to examine how and at what rate the solar wind is stripping away volatile compounds.
NASA's large strategic science missions or large strategic missions, formerly known as Flagship missions or Flagship-class missions, are the costliest and most capable NASA science spacecraft. Flagship missions exist within all four divisions of NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD): the astrophysics, Earth science, heliophysics and planetary science divisions.
The Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher (MAX-C), also known as Mars 2018 mission, was a NASA concept for a Mars rover mission, proposed to be launched in 2018 together with the European ExoMars rover. The MAX-C rover concept was cancelled in April 2011 due to budget cuts.
The Planetary Science Decadal Survey is a serial publication of the United States National Research Council produced for NASA and other United States Government Agencies such as the National Science Foundation. The documents identify key questions facing planetary science and outlines recommendations for space and ground-based exploration ten years into the future. Missions to gather data to answer these big questions are described and prioritized, where appropriate. Similar decadal surveys cover astronomy and astrophysics, earth science, and heliophysics.
Mars 2020 is a Mars rover mission that includes the rover Perseverance, the small robotic helicopter Ingenuity, and associated delivery systems, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. Mars 2020 was launched from Earth on an Atlas V launch vehicle at 11:50:01 UTC on 30 July 2020, and confirmation of touch down in the Martian crater Jezero was received at 20:55 UTC on 18 February 2021. On 5 March 2021, NASA named the landing site of the rover Octavia E. Butler Landing. As of 28 August 2023, Perseverance and Ingenuity have been on Mars for 896 sols.
Mars Cube One was a Mars flyby mission launched on 5 May 2018 alongside NASA's InSight Mars lander. It consisted of two nanospacecraft, MarCO-A and MarCO-B, that provided real-time communications to Earth for InSight during its entry, descent, and landing (EDL) on 26 November 2018 - when InSight was out of line of sight from the Earth. Both spacecraft were 6U CubeSats designed to test miniaturized communications and navigation technologies. These were the first CubeSats to operate beyond Earth orbit, and aside from telecommunications they also tested CubeSats' endurance in deep space. On 5 February 2019, NASA reported that both the CubeSats had gone silent by 5 January 2019, and are unlikely to be heard from again. In August 2019, the CubeSats were honored for their role in the successful landing of the InSight lander on Mars.
Mars Micro Orbiter (MMO) is a spacecraft mission concept that would place a small and inexpensive satellite in orbit around the planet Mars to study some aspects of the Mars atmosphere in visible and infrared wavelengths.
The International-Mars Ice Mapper (I-MIM) mission is a proposed Mars orbiter being developed by NASA in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). As the mission concept evolves, there may be opportunities for other space agency and commercial partners to join the mission. The goal of the orbiter is the quantification of extent and volume of water ice in non-polar regions of Mars. The results are intended to support future Mars missions, especially with respect to the search for habitable environments and accessible In situ resource utilization (ISRU) resources. The International-Mars Ice Mapper is an "exploration precursor mission", comparing it to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission. The mission was envisioned to be launched as early as 2026. However, in March 2022, it was revealed in its fiscal year 2023 budget proposal that the US government would terminate NASA financial support for the Mars Ice Mapper, casting the project's future into uncertainty.
The NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return is a proposed Mars sample return (MSR) mission to collect Martian rock and soil samples in 43 small, cylindrical, pencil-sized, titanium tubes and return them to Earth around 2033.
It is due to arrive at Mars in September, but MAVEN's planned orbit is not ideal for collecting and sending rover data.